South African Chefs Training College

Topping the Ranks of South African Chefs Training Colleges

In today’s challenging and highly competitive workplace, particularly in the professional kitchens of the top restaurants in South Africa, being a sought-after, creative chef is a serious business. That is why it is very important to start off in the best possible way on your career path in the culinary field.

Foundation of your Future

This is also why we cannot emphasise more strongly how vital it is to your future career development and personal growth (as it relates to your self-confidence in your career) that you attend and study this art, science, and craft at this country’s top culinary training college – the renowned Prue Leith Chefs Academy. Because your training lays the foundation of your future.

Four Founders

When our academy’s four founders first got together in the late 1990s to discuss their mutual frustration at not being able to source adequately trained local chefs whose training and newly developed culinary skills complied with their own high standards, they collectively decided to do something to address and correct the situation. So they founded and created a culinary training college in 1996, a year before the doors opened to admit the first intake of students in 1997. However, before the training college could open, the facility had to register with the South African Department of Higher Education & Training, relevant other bodies, and obtain City & Guilds international accreditation. The academy also needed a name.

Matching our Ethos

Any old name was not good enough; one that matched the founders’ ethos was needed, a respected name that was closely associated with the world of chefs and world-class food and that would be instantly recognisable as such. One name emerged as a clear winner – Prue Leith. As it happened, Prue Leith OBE, (now CBE), approved of our founders’ initiative, concept, and business plan. She responded by allowing her name to be used by a third party for the first time ever. The school began as the Prue Leith College of Food & Wine before later undergoing a name change to the Prue Leith Chefs Academy. Our on-site restaurant, open to the public and manned by students in their 2^nd commis and called the Odd Plate, was also renamed. Now the Prue Leith Restaurant, it is one of this country’s top fine-dining restaurants, providing our chefs training college’s students with practical, hands-on, experience, serving paying diners of fine cuisine.

Top Ranks

There is absolutely no doubt that, if you want to join the top ranks of professional chefs whose talents, skills, and innovative culinary creations are in demand – here, in this wonderful country we call home, as well as anywhere you choose abroad – it is imperative that you undergo your tuition at a top culinary college.

The name Prue Leith is synonymous with all things related to great gourmet food, exacting standards, inspired creativity, fine dining, and all things related to cuisine. Simply put, you are giving yourself and your career as a professional, respected, and accomplished chef a huge boost by training at our college – the Prue Leith Chefs Academy, widely acclaimed as South Africa’s top culinary school.